License

Month: April 2013

My sister brought home some fancy hight-tech Gelish Gel Polish that must be cured using a very expensive UV LED lamp. I was interested in how the gel work but could find any description. To ensure proper application of the the gel you have to follow more than 10 steps and apply different kind of polishes and cure them with this lamp. The interesting part for me was the lamp itself. It does not look anything special just an 10×3 array of 30 LEDs and a timer switch. Unfortunately I was not allowed to open the device because it is still under warranty and sister would not be happy if anything should go wrong in the process.
Gelish UV light lamp

I presume that the circuit board inside has very simple design. To replicate it you need a bunch of LEDs, some resistors to limit the current through them and an optional timer circuit. My intention was precisely that, to make my own cheap version of the original lamp. The result is this simple 8×4 array of 32 diodes.
The beam of light that I get is much narrower, so you can cure fewer nails at the same time. In terms of usefulness, she says the lamp is doing the same thing as the original. Bedsides that I can use the lamp in the process of making my own PCBs using photo sensitive copper clad board.